Ethernet Only

I have recently received several Omega2 devices, docks, and Ethernet Expansion. I have a very particular purpose to use the Omega2 as a TCP to Serial device.

I am a little bit confused in how to use the Ethernet Expansion ONLY as I do not require any wireless capabilities, WiFi or AP.

I seem to be able to get the Ethernet interface to register (by editing and adding section to /etc/config/network) and get an IP address. My natural instinct from normal linux is to ifconfig xx down , so i disable the wifi and AP interfaces.

I was not sure what to add in the /etc/config/firewall file, but the current state of my board is i have an IP on the eth0 ethernet interface, but cannot seem to route packets to and from the device.

I would expect this to be the simplest configuration over all the bridge and router instructions, but perhaps am missing a critical part ? Is it possible to setup for ethernet configuration only ?